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Monday, January 5, 2015

1st Grade Christmas Party

There's nothing like having a Christmas party for a bunch of 6 and 7 year old kids right before Christmas. The excitement in that room could not be contained. I'm so glad that I can be apart of these events with Ava. Here are the party details and some tips:

BOOK

To start the party, we read a story about the birth of Jesus. We had two Little People Nativity sets and gave one piece of the set to each child. As we read the story, the kids placed their piece in the manger scene.

CRAFT

Next the kids made an ornament. We bought clear plastic ornaments with removable tops. The kids received an ornament and plastic baggie with the "fillers" which included the following item:- hay to represent the hay in the manger- baby to represent baby Jesus- star to represent the Star of Bethlehem- feather to represent Angel wings

- cross

After the kids filled their ornaments, the parents wrote the child's name and 2014 on their ornament and tied a ribbon on top. This craft did not take long which is good because the book and the snack took MUCH longer than we'd planned.

SNACK

The kids each received the following items to construct their Christmas tree snack:

- Christmas plate and napkin

- Keebler sugar cone

- Dixie cup filled with green icing and a Popsicle stick

- Kraft Jet Puffed Holiday Mallows star

- Skittles

- Twizzlers Pull N Peel Licorice

The kids loved the snack, but it took a LONG time to decorate it and eat it so build in some extra time or bring sandwich baggies for the kids that don't finish eating the snack to take it home. You may also want to bring wipes for the kids hands - this got super messy!

Also, this snack is dairy, egg and nut free to accommodate the various food allergies in the 1st grade class!

GAME

To end the party we played Pass the Present. Each of the kids received a $1 wrapped, gender-neutral gift. The plan was that the kids would sit in a circle and pass the presents around the circle while the music played. When the music stopped, the kids would be given a clue (see below) and trade their present with a classmate based on the clue. As it turned out, the kids just hurled the gifts at each other. It was so loud that I have no idea if music was playing or not. We finally got the kids to stop throwing gifts and told them to just open their present. It was total chaos and we were out of time so we scrapped the clues! In case you are better at keeping kids under control and want the clues, here they are!